King of Sports 202 Tang Yan vs Estchenko 2

But as Tang Yan stepped back, panting and eager, Estchenko was actually up swiftly and in coming. 

Estchenko's counterattack was prudent. His swings were quick, and the angles tricky. He left almost no chance for Tang Yan.

Even with 60% of Bruce Lee's abilities unlocked, it took him a lot of time to find opportunities.

However, Tang Yan's training wasn't for nothing. He rose his arm to resist the continuous swings of Estchenko, and then used his excellent control and rapid speed to counterattack.

He bobbed under Estchenko's reaching jab and lanced in with a straight left that took Estchenko high on the forehead, snapping his head back.

Then he drove in a right to Estchenko's body, but in return he got caught with a slashing left, right that rocked him slightly.

Estchenko's strength was his heavy swings, which made his opponents have to switch from attack to defense, but at the same time this made him more vulnerable to exposing himself, after all, as long as his opponent was close enough to him and able to dodge they could retaliate with significant blows.

And Tang Yan did just that.

Estchenko closed in again with a great deal of flourish and lashed out with a long left but Tang Yan picked it off easily, then stepped in close to draw a punch, to which Estchenko swung a savage right-hand haymaker.

Tang Yan rolled and leaned back. The right flashed past in front of his nose and Estchenko alert instantly followed up with a left-hand jab to force Tang Yan back. But Tang Yan blocked the left and drove his own right hard to the pit of Estchenko's stomach. Then he crossed his left expertly to Estchenko's jaw and he wound up a punch as he shot a mighty right hook to the other side of Estchenko's jaw.

Bam!

Estchenko suffered the heavy blow and went down, slightly sprawled across the canvas. 

Seeing him laid out, the referee went up and started the countdown.

Estchenko shook his head vigorously, but Tang Yan's left right combo wasn't easy to shake off.

He struggled but eventually failed to get up.

KO!

This knockout meant that Tang Yan had defeated his opponent, broke into the quarterfinals of the World Championships and received a ticket for the Olympics!

Qin Hailong was ecstatic, Tang Yan's sudden eruption was unexpected, but winning was the best result!

In the morning, Zou Shiming had already received a 49kg Olympic ticket, so Tang Yan was their second ticket!

Tang Yan walked over and helped pull up Estchenko. Now that the match was over, they changed from opponents to friends again.

Estchenko slowly got up, breathing carefully to steady himself, as for the end of the fight, he accepted it calmly and said: "Well done you deserve the Olympic ticket."

Tang Yan smiled and patted his shoulder and said: "You fought well, don't be discouraged, you still have hope of going to London 2012 as long as I win gold."

Estchenko nodded with a smile, he had lost, but if Tang Yan won the championship or got runners-up, he would still have hope of appearing on stage at the London Olympics. As Tang Yan would then qualify as the champion or challenger so his ticket would be passed to him. 

At this time, the referee came over and grabbed the hands of the two, raising Tang Yan's right hand high at the host's announcement.

"And the winner is, Tang Yan!"

The audience became energized as they clapped and chanted.

Tang Yan was also ecstatic. After waving his right hand twice, he took a long breath.

Estchenko's strength was stronger than Luke Jackson's but this was only the round of 16, he was excited as he thought of the strong opponents he would encounter in the next match.

....

Whilst the World Boxing Championships didn't receive the same level of coverage as the swimming World Championships which were held in Shanghai, because of Tang Yan's presence its influence in China wasn't too low.

And after Tang Yan advanced to the quarter-finals and got an Olympic ticket, discussion about Tang Yan on Weibo and in the media skyrocketed to a crazy state.

Winning an Olympic boxing ticket wasn't what garnered him such attention, afterall that in itself wasn't too major especially since Zou Shiming had already won one earlier that day but what was major was that after receiving this Olympic ticket, Tang Yan had joined the history books, not just in China but everywhere.

He became the 2nd ever athlete to qualify for three separate Olympic events. 

He had automatically gained an archery ticket after winning gold at the Asian Games and his swimming performance at the World Aquatic Championships had already qualified him for the Olympics.

Participation in two events could be traced back to the first few Olympics when there were less sound rules and lower qualifying standards but as of recent only 7 or so athletes since 2000 had managed to pull off the feat, with most choosing linked events such as swimming and water polo, bobsledding and luge. 

But only one had qualified for three events and that was America's Frank Kugler, who had competed in the 1904 Summer Olympics for wrestling, weightlifting and the tug of war. He even went on to win medals in all three events, silver in wrestling and bronze in the other two. A feat so far that no one had ever matched, although in fairness Kugler had the advantage of only having two other competitors for weightlifting.

But despite having achieved something most couldn't dare dream of, it raised a few issues which became the main focus of netizens.

For example how could he even actually participate in competing for three events.

Although events were staggered and interspersed, for example in swimming where races didn't overlap, by participating in multiple events there were bound to be conflicts between that and his other two projects.

In addition, how would he have the energy to participate in so many high-intensity events back to back became another topic point for netizens.

Whilst netizens were talking fiercely, Tang Yan, who was far away in Baku, Azerbaijan, didn't pay much attention to it.

After finishing the match with Estchenko, Tang Yan realized something, it was about time he upgraded Bruce Li's character. With the boxers he was facing becoming increasingly powerful, he also needed to move a step up but he soon ran into an issue.

He was short 2 honor points.

During the World Aquatic Championships, he had upgraded Zhang Shun's abilities to 80% using up all his honor points leaving him with nothing but then he won gold twice consecutively in the 50m and the 1500m, increasing his number of honor points to 4 points.

Unlocking Bruce Li's abilities to 60% had cost 3 honor points but to upgrade to 70% would cost 6 honor points.

He ran through the maths in his head and checked, before giving out a sigh in realisation. Dammit he had miscalculated he was truly short on points. 

He kept sighing in resignation as he paced up and down. His mind was full of racing thoughts as he tried to process his options, he began to question using all his honor points on swimming as slight regret filled him but then he snapped to focus:

If he didn't invest into upgrading Zhang Shun's abilities to 80% then whilst he would have had enough honor points now, he would have potentially sacrificed 4 honor points and the chance to progress.

He couldn't allow short term benefits to cloud long term plans, upgrading Zhang Shun meant his swimming improved and he could participate in more swimming disciplines and events, increasing his opportunities to win medals and honor points. 

Plus so what, if he couldn't upgrade, dammit he would make do and adapt, this was what he had been training for anyways, to reduce his dependence on the system. 

Feeling slightly better, Tang Yan took a cold shower to clear his mind.

He came out and got dressed, feeling refreshed as he flicked on the TV, trying to find something interesting to watch and distract himself.

He flicked through constantly changing channels.

The hotel provided channels from various countries around the world. He clicked through a few local ones then unconsciously jumped abroad.

When he landed on BBC, he stopped unconsciously.

They were actually broadcasting a documentary about boxing.

Chapter end